The Paul Reiser Show: Cancelled by NBC after Two Episodes

by Trevor Kimball, April 22, 2011

First audiences and now NBC have decided they’re not “mad about Paul Reiser.” After two weeks of extremely poor ratings, the peacock network has decided to cut their losses and has cancelled The Paul Reiser Show.

Viewers largely ignored the former Mad About You star’s new sitcom when it debuted last Thursday night. The premiere attracted only a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 3.37 million total viewers. That’s the lowest Thursday night debut in NBC history.

As bad as those numbers were, they got even worse last night, dropping 18% in the demo with a 0.9 rating and 2.34 million viewers.

To no surprise, NBC has pulled The Paul Reiser Show from the schedule, effective immediately. Repeats of The Office will fill the timeslot for the immediate future.

The peacock network hasn’t indicated any plans to release the remaining four episodes of the sitcom.

What do you think? Will you miss the new sitcom? Why do you think it didn’t work? What did you like about the show?

Sad. I’ve seen Paul Reiser for years, since my Hinman College days. Perhaps it just wasn’t the right “thing”. Paul is a naturally funny guy and he’ll come up with something else that will be a hit. If Paul looks back at those crazy years at Binghamton in the ’70s he’ll make All of us laugh and keep the network guys happy.

I thought the show was just ok, but I think it definitely could have gotten better given the chance. This business of canceling shows almost immediately after they debut is absurd. It’s part of the reason I don’t really like the big 3 network shows.

Even though I did not get to watch the show I’m not surprised by the cancellation. The advertisements were so pathetically bad, I had no interest in wasting my life to tune in. Sad, considering that I was a regular viewer of Mad About You.

It was a tired retread of dreary Reiser shtick. Dreadful. If this show was an indication of what we can expect from NBC programming under the control of their Kabletown (Comcast) overlords, start making plans to do something else with your evenings.

I have to agree with the majority who feel Paul reiser was funny on tv at one point in time-this unfourtunately wasnt one of them.the first episode was horrible and the second was only slightly better but not good enough.I was a fan of his on “My 2 Dads” and “Mad about You” but he had strong female leads who were also funny to help carry the show and his male go to guys were better in those two shows as well.He didnt need 4 guy friends in this show and Duane martin’s talents were surely wasted as well on… Read more »

Paul Reiser is a very funny and entertaining guy, and I would watch anything he was in, but you can’t overcome bad writing and jokes that just aren’t funny. I did think the second episode was much better than the first, and they probably should have led off with that. Unfortunately, the horrible pilot episode probably turned off a lot of people, who never got to see episode 2.